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kittyinatophat's reviews
22 reviews
The Book of Bill by Alex Hirsch
dark
funny
mysterious
fast-paced
5.0
B̶̦̈́Ị̶͝L̷̳͌L̴̲̎ ̶̣̓B̷͎̃Ḯ̷̘Ḽ̶͊L̶̠̿ ̵͚͂Ḅ̵̊I̵̬͒Ĺ̷̻L̸͉͝
What Feasts at Night by T. Kingfisher
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
Please let the next Easton adventure have The Noon Witch
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Death, War, and Injury/Injury detail
Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata
lighthearted
fast-paced
2.5
I think I’ve had far too much Western retail experience for me to not have a bias perspective about this book.
Woman, Eating by Claire Kohda
dark
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.75
Really wanted to like this more than I did. This book felt 100-150 pages too short and left me mostly hungry (lol get it) for more plot.
What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher
dark
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology by Shane Hawk, Theodore C. Van Alst Jr.
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
5.0
Wow. All of these were so well written and scary in their own right, genuinely did not read one that I didn’t enjoy. I can definitely see myself coming back to this to reread in the future!
I did have some that I found more unsettling than others that I have to highlight:
Kushtuka - Mathilda Zeller
Hunger - Phoenix Boudreau
Before I Go - Norris Black
Night in the Chrysalis - Tiffany Morris
Scariest Story Ever - Richard Van Camp
Human Eaters - Royce K Young Wolf
Dead Owls - Mona Susan Power
The Prepper - Morgan Talty
Eulogy for a Brother, Resurrected - Carson Faust
Night Moves - Andrea L. Rogers
Capgras - Tommy Orange
The Scientist’s Horror Story - Darcie Little Badger
Collections - Amber Blaeser-Wardzalla
I did have some that I found more unsettling than others that I have to highlight:
Kushtuka - Mathilda Zeller
Hunger - Phoenix Boudreau
Before I Go - Norris Black
Night in the Chrysalis - Tiffany Morris
Scariest Story Ever - Richard Van Camp
Human Eaters - Royce K Young Wolf
Dead Owls - Mona Susan Power
The Prepper - Morgan Talty
Eulogy for a Brother, Resurrected - Carson Faust
Night Moves - Andrea L. Rogers
Capgras - Tommy Orange
The Scientist’s Horror Story - Darcie Little Badger
Collections - Amber Blaeser-Wardzalla
Content Warnings
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Bullying, Child abuse, Death, Domestic abuse, Genocide, Homophobia, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Murder, Cultural appropriation, Colonisation, and Injury/Injury detail
A House with Good Bones by T. Kingfisher
adventurous
funny
informative
mysterious
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Loveable characters? Yes
4.0
The Awakening by Caroline Peckham, Susanne Valenti
funny
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.0
As a pre-review disclaimer, I want to say that everyone is entitled to enjoy whatever books they want and I also have plenty of things I love that are very off putting to others so...my word is not absolute.
I described this book to one of my friends as “it’s like eating flour”. It’s becomes very unpleasant very quickly and might poison you.
Let me tell you folks something: I am a seasoned fanfiction reader and author, who loves to go looking for the weirdest content tags. Crack fics, filler plot, poor character development and general YA cringe doesn’t phase me. I consider myself to be someone who thrives on the most ridiculous, poorly written and at times barely coherent material, the worse the better.
But this book? It humbled me. What I believed was a high tolerance for poor writing was actually just barely scratching the surface.
I admit the mistake is mostly on me: I did 0 research going into this series and I had no idea of the overall feelings of it. I just got sucked in by the cover and the fact that I’m an astrology girlie ™️.
If (keeping with the flour analogy) this book is supposed to be a cake, there’s a reason why it isn’t cake and is instead literally just flour: we are missing a lot of other key ingredients to make a cake. I’ll highlight a few:
- Set in a “dog eat dog” world where it’s “everyone for themselves”. Frequent reoccurring s*xual harassment, groping, murder, really edgy stuff. Except…the both internal and external dialogue is heavily written in a YA style. This book can truly not decide if it wants to be raw, real and uncensored or a “freshly-turned-18-Mary-Sue-adventure”.
- Switching between grammar and spellings of words? i.e. Favorite vs Favourite??? Where is the editor? It seems like there are two people involved with writing and no editor.
- We spend the majority of the book without a plot. We get it, everyone is an antagonist, this is a harsh world, but what’s the overall plot? It sometimes reads like every chapter is a clean slate and we have to reestablish the entire narrative
- There’s way, way too many characters and none of them are well written or good people so they truly have no redeeming quality.
This book is literally missing everything else to be a complete story. The eggs, butter, sugar, everything.
My biggest issue is who this is supposed to be aimed at though. Because I found myself thinking as I read “Maybe I would like this more if I was reading this 15 years ago, when I was 15”. But with the non-con and detailed sexual descriptions this shouldn’t be in the YA category at all imo. If you’re writing adults for adults, please write adult dialogue.
The only thing that changed this book’s trajectory into my DNF pile was when one of my good writing friends jumped into the hellfire with me and it shifted from “reading for literature” to “reading for trash”. I wholeheartedly recommend reading this book with someone so you have another human to process the awfulness of it with.
Once I made that switch though the book got much better to the point where I will probably continue with the series at some point, if not strictly to see what the hell becomes of this world plot that doesn’t exist and all the loose ends. But I need a deep brain cleanse first.
P.S. Everyone knows the most dramatic ass people have blue hair (from someone who has had blue hair multiple times)
I described this book to one of my friends as “it’s like eating flour”. It’s becomes very unpleasant very quickly and might poison you.
Let me tell you folks something: I am a seasoned fanfiction reader and author, who loves to go looking for the weirdest content tags. Crack fics, filler plot, poor character development and general YA cringe doesn’t phase me. I consider myself to be someone who thrives on the most ridiculous, poorly written and at times barely coherent material, the worse the better.
But this book? It humbled me. What I believed was a high tolerance for poor writing was actually just barely scratching the surface.
I admit the mistake is mostly on me: I did 0 research going into this series and I had no idea of the overall feelings of it. I just got sucked in by the cover and the fact that I’m an astrology girlie ™️.
If (keeping with the flour analogy) this book is supposed to be a cake, there’s a reason why it isn’t cake and is instead literally just flour: we are missing a lot of other key ingredients to make a cake. I’ll highlight a few:
- Set in a “dog eat dog” world where it’s “everyone for themselves”. Frequent reoccurring s*xual harassment, groping, murder, really edgy stuff. Except…the both internal and external dialogue is heavily written in a YA style. This book can truly not decide if it wants to be raw, real and uncensored or a “freshly-turned-18-Mary-Sue-adventure”.
- Switching between grammar and spellings of words? i.e. Favorite vs Favourite??? Where is the editor? It seems like there are two people involved with writing and no editor.
- We spend the majority of the book without a plot. We get it, everyone is an antagonist, this is a harsh world, but what’s the overall plot? It sometimes reads like every chapter is a clean slate and we have to reestablish the entire narrative
- There’s way, way too many characters and none of them are well written or good people so they truly have no redeeming quality.
This book is literally missing everything else to be a complete story. The eggs, butter, sugar, everything.
My biggest issue is who this is supposed to be aimed at though. Because I found myself thinking as I read “Maybe I would like this more if I was reading this 15 years ago, when I was 15”. But with the non-con and detailed sexual descriptions this shouldn’t be in the YA category at all imo. If you’re writing adults for adults, please write adult dialogue.
The only thing that changed this book’s trajectory into my DNF pile was when one of my good writing friends jumped into the hellfire with me and it shifted from “reading for literature” to “reading for trash”. I wholeheartedly recommend reading this book with someone so you have another human to process the awfulness of it with.
Once I made that switch though the book got much better to the point where I will probably continue with the series at some point, if not strictly to see what the hell becomes of this world plot that doesn’t exist and all the loose ends. But I need a deep brain cleanse first.
P.S. Everyone knows the most dramatic ass people have blue hair (from someone who has had blue hair multiple times)
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual harassment
Moderate: Sexual assault and Sexual harassment
Minor: War